February was Black History Month and an interesting raft of statistics has shown the level of representation from both AEW and WWE.
Will Washington of the Grapsody podcast presented his analysis for both companies based on information provided by Cagematch.
Using his color-coded charts (which can be seen towards the bottom of this news story), we can see that in February 2023, AEW Dynamite and AEW Rampage led the way with 10 different black performers in matches over WWE only managing 7 and 4 for Raw and SmackDown respectively, though WWE NXT equalled the achievements of AEW’s TV product with 10 in total.
Both WWE and SmackDown did manage to deliver one show each where there were no black wrestlers in ring.
AEW Dynamite sat at the top of the table with 7 matches won by a black wrestler, whilst NXT and WWE Raw would have 5 each, leaving SmackDown at the bottom of the table with a lowly 2 black wrestlers winning, saving AEW Rampage from the lowest score.
As for main eventing shows, the chart shows that Impact Wrestling was ahead of the competition with 3, whilst WWE NXT and AEW Rampage would see 2.
AEW Dynamite and WWE Raw would both be spared the bottom spot with their 1 main event featuring a black wrestler, compared to SmackDown’s 0.
Washington would also provide the average percentage of black performers featured in-ring every week.
This breakdown would see AEW Rampage riding high with 24%, a touch ahead of AEW Dynamite with 23% and NXT with 22%.
Towards the bottom of the averages, we see Impact and Raw at 16% and SmackDown hitting the bottom of the chart with 10%
As Washington notes in his Twitter thread:
“Cagematch… recognizes all gauntlets as separate matches.”
As was noted by @FattyFrankel on Twitter, AEW and Impact draw from a single roster across their programming, whereas Raw and SmackDown have separate rosters (although appearances on the other brand aren’t out of the question).
During Black History Month, I started tracking the representation of black performers on professional wrestling TV shows in televised matches. The color coordination of the chart is relative to the highest comparative value and zero.
Take away from it whatever you will. pic.twitter.com/3HCa9kZVJf
— Will Washington (@WillWashington) March 13, 2023
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